


A Thousand Paths in a Single Step

by russian_blue



Category: Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan
Genre: F/M, Misses Clause Challenge, au-ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-11
Updated: 2012-12-11
Packaged: 2017-11-20 21:26:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/589813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/russian_blue/pseuds/russian_blue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Step through</i>, the Wise Ones said.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Thousand Paths in a Single Step

**Author's Note:**

  * For [liberatores](https://archiveofourown.org/users/liberatores/gifts).



The sound was faint enough for Aviendha to wonder if she had imagined it. She paused in the corridor, weight on the balls of her feet, and stilled her breathing to listen.

Nothing.

She cursed the indecision that gripped her. If she’d still been a Maiden, her course would have been clear. The sound—if there had been a sound—came from Rand al’Thor’s room. He had left the hold with the clan chiefs that morning, and was not back yet. A Maiden who heard a sound, or _thought_ she heard a sound, from a room that should be empty, would veil her face and go to look, ready to dance the spears if she found anyone who shouldn’t be there.

But she wasn’t a Maiden anymore. She was the Wise Ones’ apprentice. What was her duty now?

Aviendha stiffened her back. That room was Rand al’Thor’s. It was probably empty, or a _gai’shain_ was in there cleaning . . . but if she was wrong and let it pass, her _toh_ would be enormous.

She shoved the door open and went inside.

The gleeman Jasin Natael whirled to stare at her. What purpose he had in rummaging through Rand al’Thor’s things, Aviendha didn’t know, but she didn’t have to. The look on the gleeman’s face was enough to tell her it wasn’t good.

She had no spear, and Wise Ones were not supposed to fight. She could not let Jasin Natael escape, though. Aviendha reached for the Source, and felt a surge of triumph when _saidar_ filled her. She would wrap him up in bands of Air, as she had seen others do, and hold him until Rand al’Thor returned.

Then the Source vanished, cut off from her by a wall she could not see. Aviendha staggered in shock, staring at Jasin Natael. “You—”

The rest of her question never made it out. Something shoved itself into her mouth, stilling her tongue and blocking any sound her throat might make. Air, it had to be Air—but that would mean—

“Your timing is terrible,” the gleeman muttered, coming toward her. More flows she could not see bound her arms to her sides, as she’d meant to do to him. Aviendha’s heart thundered in her chest. Jasin Natael could channel. A viper like that, among them, hidden . . . she had to warn the others!

But first she had to escape.

“I would get rid of you entirely,” Jasin Natael said, scowling, “but they’d wonder where you went. Pity I don’t have enough Myrddraal and minions here to turn you; that would be the ideal solution. As it stands . . .”

He studied her, one finger tapping against the opposite elbow, while Aviendha struggled without result against her invisible bonds. Then he sighed. “I hope you still have a mind left when I’m done. Otherwise I’ll have to kill you after all, and that will cause problems.”

She couldn’t see the flows he wove, but she felt them settling over her mind, binding her thoughts, shaping them, taking away even the urge to scream . . . .

_a faint sound, but she heard nothing more, and so she shook her head and kept walking_

_“will take me with you, Rand al’Thor. You need me if you are to talk to the clan chiefs without shaming us both”_

She has moved only a fraction of a step, toes barely crossing the edge of the ring she chose. The grey metal is dull in the fog-shrouded plaza, and nothing disturbs the air inside it. _Step through_ , Amys told her—but nothing a Wise One says is ever simple. To complete this task, she will have to walk miles and years through her life, down a thousand different paths.

Her foot moves a hair’s-breadth forward.

 _if what the_ Car’a’carn _said was true, then_ gai’shain _white was the only answer_

_following the faint sound of music until she saw the bright wagon of a Tinker_

_tied the red band of the Dragon around her head, in defiance of the Wise Ones’ stares_

“I’m sure it is a very good joke,” Aviendha said politely. Even though the last thing she felt like was being polite. Even though she feared— _knew_ —where this was going.

Her heart was thumping hard enough that the Wise Ones could likely hear it. “The survival of our people is not a joke,” Melaine snapped. “Your teaching is too slow; the _Car’a’carn_ has not learned enough. He must understand that he belongs to the Aiel, if even a remnant of a remnant is to be saved.”

“But he will refuse,” Aviendha protested. “And I don’t want—”

She stopped, horrified, but it was too late; the words had slipped out. “Don’t _want?_ ” Amys said. “‘Want’ is a word for children. You are an apprentice, girl, and you will do as you are told. If you had dug your heels in less earlier, we might not have come to this point. Now, we have no other choice.”

“And he will not refuse,” Bair said, darkly. “Not unless he wants a blood feud.”

 _Aviendha_ could refuse. The Wise Ones would set her a punishment, some humiliating task so public and unbearable that she would do anything to escape it. Then she would be back where she started, only this time, _everyone_ would know that the Wise Ones had forced her into this.

There was, as Amys said, no other choice. Not unless she wanted to let the bleakness take her, to run away as others had done, abandoning everything that made her Aiel. And she had already sworn to herself that she would never do that.

Her face burned red as she went, bundle in hand, to where Rand al’Thor was consulting with the clan chiefs. “We must talk,” she said abruptly, too loud, and Rhuarc raised his eyebrows in surprise.

Rand al’Thor blinked in confusion. “If you want, Aviendha,” he said. “After I—”

“ _Now,_ ” she said. _Before my nerve fails me._ She was shamefully close to fleeing already.

“All right,” Rand al’Thor said. Rand; she should try to think of him as Rand, the way the wetlanders did. He had thrown his coat over a nearby chest; without the embroidered garment, he looked much more Aiel. The Dragons glimmered on his forearms below his rolled-up sleeves, shifting with every movement of his hands. Aviendha swallowed and looked away.

He apologized to the clan chiefs, promising to finish the meeting later. They had been planning how to chase down and crush the Shaido; it made her long for her days as a Maiden. But those were behind her now, and Aviendha pretended not to hear the men’s jokes as they filed past her out of the tent.

Once they were gone, she yanked the tent flaps free of their ties, letting them fall shut. It made the interior stiflingly warm, but better that than to have people watching.

“Are you all right, Aviendha?” Rand asked, coming closer. “You look unwell. Should I ask Moiraine to examine you?”

Did he even know that he shamed her, talking like that? No, of course not. Melaine was right; she hadn’t taught him quickly enough. Well, after this he would learn. He would have no choice.

Aviendha took a deep breath, steeling herself as if she were about to dance the spears. Then she unwrapped the bundle she held, bent before she could reconsider what she was doing, and laid a bridal wreath at Rand al’Thor’s feet.

 _too much_ oosquai _. But Melindhra was right about Mat Cauthon’s sense of humor, and also about his clever hands_

 _washcloth in her hand, and Rand in the doorway staring at her; she had to get away, this instant,_ far _away_

Her body aches with tension, with the effort of forcing herself through a single step. Already it is too much: too many decisions, too many futures branching outward from each one, and so many of them ending badly.

A part of her wants to refuse, to hide from the consequences of everything she might—could— _will_ do wrong. And she knows she has that cowardice in her; she’s seen it a dozen times already, in a dozen different situations. But she can also choose not to give in. She’s seen those paths, too.

She forces herself onward.

_the Source escaped her, but Couladin did not expect a Wise One with a spear in her hand_

_through the doorway into Caemlyn. The street outside was strangely empty. Then lightning began to fall and_

A part of her still wished she’d gone with Matrim Cauthon. It would have relieved her heart to be able to repay her _toh_ to Elayne, for her moment of inexcusable weakness. But however great that _toh_ was, it was a personal matter, and her responsibility to the _Car’a’carn_ came first. Even if she could barely look him in the face.

She did not trust these wetlander nobles, especially not the women. They studied him with calculating eyes, as if considering the best way to devour him. Rand knew to be wary of the men, but he was unwilling, even now, to see the women as threat—which made them all the more dangerous.

The woman who entered the throne room in Caemlyn was another kind of threat entirely.

She wore close-fitting trousers and a short coat, not the embroidered dress of a wetlander woman, like those Cairhienin fools who claimed to follow _ji’e’toh_. Aviendha could not see any weapons on her, but that meant nothing. The woman was studying the nobles in the throne room, one by one; then her gaze came to rest on Aviendha, and her eyes widened. Aviendha stiffened. That look was not one she trusted.

Her distrust deepened when Rand dismissed the nobles and leapt to greet this strange wetlander. No, not just greet her; he picked her up and spun a circle with her in his arms, laughing in a way Aviendha had not seen from him in weeks. Possibly ever. Who was this woman, to make Rand al’Thor so happy? And to lean against his chest like that, and to call him fond names?

“Aviendha,” Rand said, when they were done laughing. “Come, meet Min. She’s an old friend of mine.”

 _Old friend_ fell short of describing his behavior with Min Farshaw—Aviendha could not bring herself to abbreviate the woman’s name, once she learned the rest of it. It gave her reason to be glad all over again that she had decided to stay with Rand, instead of going with Matrim Cauthon. She could lessen her _toh_ toward Elayne right now, by dealing with this wetlander woman who behaved as if Rand al’Thor belonged to her.

Min Farshaw did not look surprised when Aviendha sought her out, a few days later. “I wanted to talk to you,” the wetlander said, “but it was a little difficult to know where to begin.” She laughed, clearly embarrassed.

“I will tell you where we begin,” Aviendha said. “Rand al’Thor belongs to Elayne Trakand.” Her traitorous memory reminded her of his skin, warm against the chill of her own, and the strength of his arms around her . . . she shoved the thoughts away. He belonged to Elayne, no matter what else had happened.

At least Min Farshaw had enough honor not to pretend that she didn’t understand what Aviendha meant. “It’s more complicated than that. I have this ability—I see things around people. Images. They tell me what’s going to happen to people. Elayne is going to be with Rand, yes, but—” She blushed again, then took a deep breath and forged ahead. “So am I. And so are you.”

Hearing this wetlander woman speak openly of Aviendha’s shame infuriated her. Had Rand told her? If so, she would deal with him next. “You think you can choose sister-wives for Elayne? You are not married to Rand al’Thor. You have no right to speak of such things!”

“It isn’t like that,” Min Farshaw protested. “I’m not saying I _want_ this; I’m saying it’s _going to happen_. I knew it the moment I laid eyes on Elayne, even before I knew who she was. She would have to share her husband with two other women. It took me longer to realize that meant Rand, and that I was one of the other two. I didn’t know you were the third until I met you.”

Aviendha had never neard of anything like it. Images? There had been a few Wise Ones who could foresee the future, but not like this. Suspicious, she said, “You are not Aes Sedai.”

“No. It isn’t a thing of the Power. It’s just something I can do—I don’t know why.”

The promise of it was seductive. If the Wheel willed that Elayne should have sister-wives . . . Aviendha snarled. That did nothing to change her _toh_ for what she had done, nor her duty now. She had promised her near-sister Egwene to watch Rand al’Thor for Elayne. And watching him did not mean allowing this woman to play honey-games with him.

Aviendha said, “You cannot channel, so I will not use the One Power against you. Rand al’Thor tells me you carry knives." She drew her own, and Min Farshaw's eyes widened. "I will have _toh_ to the Wise Ones when they find out I challenged you, but I will have more if I break my promise to Elayne. Draw your weapon. Once I have defeated you, I intend to beat you until you howl.”

_debt to Elayne, but a Wise One should not fight, and certainly not over a man_

_“Very well, Rand al’Thor; I will go with your friend”_

So many errors! Amys said she might see cherished hopes as well, even if they could not be. Where are those brighter futures? Is she so thoroughly a fool, that all her choices turn out badly?

She does not want to see more. She has humiliated herself a hundred times, died a hundred more; nowhere has she seen anything that could make her be called wise. All she knows is that she is tied to Rand al’Thor with bonds she cannot break, and that everywhere she turns he is there. Is there no future where she is free of him?

Is such a future even what she wants?

_“enter you in the novice book if you insist, Aviendha, but I still”_

_eyes of the Shadowsouled woman, flat with hatred above the collar around her neck. “I will kill her for you, Nynaeve”_

_flows melted away from the creature, and then its fingers sank into her throat and ripped it out_

Aviendha stared dully at the floor, letting exhaustion serve as an outward substitute for submission. The bracelet of her leash hung from a peg on the wall; there was no _sul’dam_ to know it for pretense.

Day by day, it was becoming more than pretense. It was becoming true.

She was Aiel. She was supposed to laugh at pain! But no punishment, no torture her people had ever dreamed of approached the cruelty of the _a’dam_. The agony inflicted on her through it was a trivial thing; the true horror was the way it _controlled_ her. Made her into the puppet of the one who wore the bracelet. She could not even touch most things now; everything she looked at was a potential weapon, a way to strike back at those who chained her, and the collar locked her muscles if she so much as tried to reach out. She ate her meals off the floor, and Mefara laughed and stroked her hair, calling her Ippi, her a fierce little pet.

No, that wasn’t the true horror. Even the _a’dam_ was only a means to an end.

The other _damane_ in the room—Aviendha caught the thought before she could finish it. The _damane_ in the room. She would not count herself as one of them. The _damane_ sat at their leisure, chatting and laughing with one another. They were all Seanchan, and eager to serve. To be used in the war against the Dragon Reborn and his spears. That, more than anything, was what Aviendha feared: to be a weapon against the clans. Against Rand.

Once she would have sworn that nothing could ever force her to that end. But that was before she'd been captured in the invasion of Ebou Dar—before someone placed a collar around her neck and set out to break her utterly. 

Several more _sul’dam_ came in with their charges and hung the leashes on pegs before going to converse with their fellows. Aviendha avoided eye contact, not wanting yet another Seanchan woman to begin telling her in a soft, reasonable voice how much better it was to be leashed. But in her peripheral vision, she saw that the woman nearest to her sat with head drooping and shoulders slumped. Another recent captive, then.

With a shock, Aviendha recognized Nynaeve.

They had not seen one another in . . . she had lost count of the days. The Seanchan had known better than to keep the two of them together after their capture. Not with both of them so determined to resist.

The change in Nynaeve was appalling. Not just her appearance; her hair had been hacked short, and her sunken eyes and cheeks said she had been neither sleeping nor eating well. Her posture was defeated, lifeless. Nynaeve had always been so strong—but it was a brittle strength, Aviendha knew. The woman had never learned to embrace pain.

She crawled forward, to the limit of her own leash. “Nynaeve!”

Twice more she had to whisper the name before the other woman looked up, with a distant spark of surprise. Of course; they would have renamed her, just as Aviendha was now forced to answer to Ippi. At the sight of Aviendha, Nynaeve began to shake all over. “Light,” she whispered. “I—I thought you were dead. Light forgive me, I hoped you were.”

There was nothing to forgive. A part of Aviendha had hoped the same. Or that Nynaeve had escaped . . . but she might as well hope for the moon. Death was far more likely.

Nynaeve shifted closer, trying not to draw the attention of the _sul’dam_. “Were you there for the meeting? I didn’t see you, but—” She didn’t have to finish the sentence. _But I wasn’t looking._ Her gaze would have been on the floor, as the Seanchan demanded.

Aviendha shook her head. “What meeting?”

“The generals.” Nynaeve swallowed, looking sick. “They’re planning another attack. With _damane_. And my—my _sul’dam_ said she will take me with her. They’re going to force me to make a gateway for their army, Aviendha. Maybe even to fight. And I—” She began to tremble. “I can’t stop them. I can’t. I’ve tried, Light knows I’ve tried . . . .”

She dragged herself the rest of the distance, and Aviendha folded the other woman into her arms. They couldn’t stay like this for long; the _sul’dam_ would notice and come to pry them apart. But for now they clung to each other with every scrap of strength in their bodies, as if they could find courage in each other, when they had lost it in themselves.

“We have to stop them,” Nynaeve gasped into Aviendha’s shoulder.

The same vow Aviendha had made a thousand times. But the words alone were hollow, and she lacked any way to make them more. “Even uncollared, what could we do?” she whispered, too softly for anyone else to hear. “They have as many spears as all the clans combined. Perhaps more. You and I are strong, and stronger if we link, but—”

“We can stop them from _using_ our strength.”

Aviendha went still. An idea flashed into her mind, and was banished as quickly. She didn’t know if it would work, but the more she let herself think about it, the more likely it became that the collar would prevent her.

Her answer was nearly soundless, a mere breath in Nynaeve’s ear. “Are you certain?”

Nynaeve drew back to look Aviendha in the eye. In the distance, Aviendha saw a _sul’dam_ hurrying toward them. Allowing them this moment of contact had been a mistake, one the leash-holders would soon put right. But she had a moment still before the _sul’dam_ got there.

The resolution in Nynaeve’s face was a pure and breathtaking thing. The woman might be a wetlander, but she understood fighting to the last shred of her will. And when that last shred was spent . . . .

Aviendha could not touch anything that might be used as a weapon—but there was one thing they could not take away from her.

She acted without thought, as a Maiden of the Spear acted in battle. She wrapped her hands around Nynaeve’s head, and _wrenched_.

_fire in the sky over Ebou Dar as the Seanchan entered the city_

_realizing too late she had reached for the wrong flow_

_thread writhed out of her grasp_

_unpicking the weave, but too slowly_

_last of it dissolved, and now no one could read the residue and follow_

Every muscle in her body aches with tension, with fighting to resist or refuse or flee, with fighting to drive herself onward. That ache is the one thing that anchors her, reminds her that somewhere, very far away, there is a body, and that body is stepping through a ring in Rhuidean.

Of those who would be Wise One apprentices, most return. It is not like the final test to become a Wise One, the test the clan chiefs face, that is somehow terrible enough to break even those who should be strong. But it does happen that sometimes a would-be apprentice fails.

She cannot allow herself to fail.

_Adeleas Namelle on the floor with her throat cut_

_in time to see Careane Fransi hammer the stake into the Darkfriend’s heart_

Bile rose in Aviendha’s throat. She did not like the Aes Sedai who traveled with them from Ebou Dar; the women were argumentative, none of them willing to bow to the wisdom of another. But she had not thought, until Adeleas Namelle died, that any of them would be traitors. Enemies. Darkfriends.

Some of the bile was for herself, that she could be so weak as to allow herself to be captured.

In part it had happened because capture was the last thing Aviendha expected. If Careane Fransi was willing to cut the throat of an Aes Sedai and drive a stake through the heart of her fellow Darkfriend, she obviously did not flinch from murder. If she didn’t want Aviendha’s body found, burning it to ash would be simple enough; otherwise she could leave it somewhere in the streets of Caemlyn, as a warning to Elayne. But instead the woman and her companions had linked and forced a shield onto Aviendha—barely. Even with the link, the tide had almost gone the other way. Why had they taken the risk?

Whatever their reason, they would regret it. Once Aviendha escaped, Elayne would know at last who the viper among them was.

First, though, she had to escape.

She had to admit it wouldn’t be easy. The three she surprised had other allies, more Darkfriend Aes Sedai. Five of them altogether, and four were here right now, holding the shield that kept her from the Source, while Careane Fransi was off on some unknown errand. Ropes and a gag bound Aviendha’s body, and she lay on the floor in full sight of her guards. But none of the women knew how to tie a proper knot. The bonds around her wrists were slowly loosening as she twisted her hands. It was slow—she couldn’t risk them noticing—but soon she would be able to slip free. And then . . . .

The door swung open. There was no point in pretending not to look; Aviendha arched her back, craning to see who had arrived.

All thoughts of escape vanished.

More women were filing in. Not just Careane Fransi, but others Aviendha hadn’t seen before. She counted, reflexively, even though the actual number wouldn’t matter. Eight others, all of whom could channel. Even one would have been too many.

And behind them came a line of Myrddraal, boneless in their black cloaks. Aviendha’s heart began to pound. A single Halfman was hard enough to kill. This many . . . even with balefire, she couldn’t fight them all.

But she would get no chance to fight these, not bound and gagged and shielded as she was. The Darkfriend Aes Sedai had brought them here for a reason—the same reason, she suspected, that Careane Fransi had not killed her. The four who held her shield stood, not at all surprised at the new arrivals. “I’ve never seen this done before,” one of Aviendha's guards said, sounding as excited as a child about to go on her first hunt. “May I examine her afterward?”

“There will be nothing to see,” one of the women with Careane Fransi said. “But if you insist.”

A flow of Air dragged Aviendha to the center of the floor, making room for the others to form a circle around her. The newcomers linked with her four guards, strengthening her shield beyond the point where she could break it—but then they tied it off.

It was the closest thing to a chance she was likely to get. A tied weave was more vulnerable than one actively held. Aviendha knew that escaping the shield would not save her, not with thirteen linked Darkfriend Aes Sedai and an equal number of Myrddraal ringing her.

But she might kill one or more of them. _Till shade is gone, till water is gone, into the Shadow with teeth bared, screaming defiance with the last breath, to spit in Sightblinder’s eye on the last Day . . . ._

She threw herself against those knots, the hard points in the slick surface of the shield, even as the Darkfriends formed a weave she didn’t recognize, a weave whose intricacy was rivaled only by the work done through the Bowl of Winds. One knot broke. But now the weave stretched forward, from the outer ring of Aes Sedai to the inner ring of thirteen Myrddraal. It went _into_ the creatures, as if they were _ter’angreal_ to be activated by the flows. Panting against her gag, Avienda attacked a second knot. It too broke, and she started on a third—but now the flows were passing through the Halfmen and coming out once more, their intricacy warped and twisted, as if twining around some other power she could not see. _Saidin_? Wrongness rippled through the air as the flows extended toward Aviendha, worse than anything she had ever sensed around Rand, making her skin shudder in horror.

Three knots gone, but it wasn’t enough. The flows reached Aviendha, and sank into her body.

It was the foulness of Myrddraal, their bone-melting grace; it was the stench of a Darkhound and the entrancing song of a Draghkar. The taint of the Dark One himself permeated her. The world spun and slid before Aviendha’s eyes, shadows crawling out of the corners and staining the light black. Her heart slowed, a lifetime passing between each beat—a lifetime in which she felt exactly what the weave was doing to her.

She saw Shayol Ghul, rearing against the poisoned sky of the Blight, and the Pit of Doom below. She was there and on the floor of a room in Caemlyn; she had no body, and felt her body convulse with the agony and ecstatic bliss of the Dark One’s presence. Sightblinder _saw_ her, and the defiant litany she had recited since childhood was gone, torn away by the weave, leaving only abject surrender.

Aviendha went limp on the floor.

She returned to her senses slowly, every muscle trembling with exhaustion. Around her, the others talked, but their voices were distant and muddled. Someone was undoing her bonds. The shield was gone. She was free.

Something else entered the room. Another Myrddraal, but different from all the others. It carried an echo of the presence that had annihilated and remade her.

Unbidden, Aviendha crawled across the floor and knelt before it. “Master. Tell me how I may serve.”

_Rand’s presence in her mind, a promise that she would never be alone_

_also the promise of seeing Rand that made her go with the Wise Ones_

Never. _Never._ Her denial is the rope she clings to, dangling over the abyss of losing herself. She can barely remember who she is, her identity one grain of sand among countless others, all the versions of herself she might become. But she _will_ not be the woman who serves the Dark One. She _will_ not be the one who fails, the one who dies, the one who betrays her friends through malice or arrogance or weakness.

Where is the self she is now? Where is the self she must become?

_"must talk, then send in spears to fetch these wetlander kings out from their hole"_

_eyes went black and_ something _reached out, tearing the wetlander queen to pieces_

The purpose of _cadin’sor_ was concealment. The clothing might be traditional, but the Aiel had altered it when they crossed into the wetlands, adapting it to the greener terrain. In that sense, then, the servant’s clothing Aviendha wore was _cadin’sor_ : it allowed her to blend into her surroundings, drawing no one’s eye.

Of course, the Wise Ones would frown on her thinking that way. As far as they were concerned, she was still their apprentice, despite—Aviendha’s breath quickened, and she forced herself to slow it. Despite everything. And a Wise One should not dirty her hands like this, nor think of herself as if she were still a Maiden of the Spear. But they had no choice left; the world teetered on the brink. The Pattern rotting, the Seanchan bringing every land under their heel, the _Car’a’carn_ lost to them. At such a moment, _nothing_ was forbidden—not even for a Wise One to kill.

She slipped through the hallways of the Tarasin Palace with her head bowed and her posture meek. It was a weakness of the Seanchan: the fact that she was there, within their guards, made those who saw her assume she belonged. So long as she acted like a servant, no one would question her.

And when the act ended, there would be no one left alive to ask questions.

The time spent in the palace as a guest of Tylin Mitsobar served her well. Aviendha knew her path, could hurry onward without pausing, as if the bundle in her hands was something she had been sent to deliver. The servant in the room she entered knew better, but died with Aviendha’s knife in her throat before she could shout for the guards.

Then she had only to wait.

Matrim Cauthon was not as blind as those around him. The door had barely closed behind him before he spotted her and knew she wasn’t a servant. But Aviendha had judged him correctly; he didn’t shout for his guards.

“Aviendha,” he said, with a shadow of his old humour. “Just my luck. I’ll admit, I never expected to find you in my bedroom.”

They had not seen one another in months, not since the series of disasters that followed the Seanchan invasion of Ebou Dar. Not since Aviendha’s escape from captivity. Not since Cauthon became the tame general of High Lady Tuon—now the Empress Fortuona.

Aviendha drifted toward him. If he wanted to talk, she did not mind; it meant she could close the distance between them. Cauthon knew it, though, and circled to keep her at a distance. The movement took him away from the door. That was good, too.

“Are you here to kill me?” he asked quietly.

Aviendha bared her teeth. “That depends on you. If you help me . . . then I may not.”

He sucked in a breath, understanding. “You’ve come here to free him.”

“Of course I’ve come to free him,” she spat. The Wise Ones’ training stood her in good stead; the Maiden she had once been would have flung herself at him, knife first, blinded by her rage. “You are a traitor, Matrim Cauthon, a waste of the water you drink. What sort of man betrays his near-brother to his enemies?”

Her accusation called up sick fury in Cauthon’s face. “He isn’t any kind of brother to me, Aviendha! He isn’t even my friend anymore—you’ve seen what he’s becoming. He’s a channeler and a madman, almost as bad as the Dark One himself. He almost killed the Empress, may she live forever. How could we let him walk free, with the Last Battle ahead of us?”

“And so you collared him, with your own two hands. As you collar all channelers.”

She had not been there to see it. The shame of that, the _toh_ she could never repay, weighed on her like a mountain. When Rand needed her most, she had been in the Waste, walking through glass columns in pointless obedience to tradition. Because of that, she had not been at Rand’s side when his childhood friend, in loyal service to the Seanchan Empress, locked a collar around his neck.

If she had been, she would have killed Matrim Cauthon on the spot.

“I haven’t shouted for anyone to come and collar _you_ ,” Cauthon pointed out. Then he frowned, and one hand went to his chest, where she knew the foxhead medallion must hang beneath his shirt.

Smiling at him was like drinking poison. “No, I haven’t channeled at you. I can’t.”

Any flows directed at him would melt away as if they’d never been—but that was not what she meant, and she watched as Cauthon figured it out.

“When?” he asked, in barely more than a whisper. “How?”

“While escaping Ebou Dar,” she said. “I burned myself out.”

The aching hole was there inside her; it never went away. Nynaeve swore she would find a way to Heal it, as she had Healed stilling and gentling. But burning out was not the same, and she had not found the answer yet. Aviendha had learned not to hope for it. Hope made the loss hurt more. For now, her dedication to Rand al’Thor and the Last Battle kept her going.

And tonight, her loss even helped her. No one here looked twice at a woman who could not channel . . . and Matrim Cauthon’s medallion would not protect him against her.

He lunged sideways, without warning. Aviendha laughed when his hands, thrust behind the curtain, came out empty. “Your spear is gone, Matrim Cauthon,” she said. “I made sure of that before you came in.”

“My guards aren’t gone,” he said, dropping into a defensive crouch. “One shout from me, and they’ll be in here.”

“And then they will torture me for days,” Aviendha said indifferently. “That is what your wife will order, Prince of the Ravens. Can you stand to watch it happen?”

It was a flaw many of these wetlander men shared, an unwillingness to accept the death of a woman. Cauthon had killed women before, she knew, but he hated it. And however much he had changed, living among the Seanchan, he could not face the prospect of her torture.

Aviendha had no compunctions about killing anyone, least of all Matrim Cauthon.

Even the heartbeat it took to draw the kerchief across her face gave him sufficient warning. He had a knife out before she got within reach of him. However much she despised him, Aviendha had to grant this much: Cauthon was a warrior the equal of any spear. He blocked her first strike and slashed at her face, forcing her to leap back. “Burn you, Aviendha,” he snarled. “Don’t make me kill you.”

She laughed at him. “Why should I care? If I don’t free him, we will all be dead and worse.” A quick flurry of strikes was cover for her foot, sweeping around to try and knock Cauthon off balance. It almost worked, too.

“If you _do_ free him, we’ll all be worse than dead.” He rushed her, and Aviendha quickly sidestepped. That would be a mistake, letting him get too close. Cauthon was smaller than most Aiel men and wiry rather than broad, but he still had the advantage in weight, if not by much. “We’re following prophecy, Aviendha. It says he has to serve the Crystal Throne.”

 _Seanchan_ prophecy. But Aviendha did not waste her breath arguing. If Cauthon would not help her, then she would kill him and take the medallion. It was the only thing that could protect her against the _damane_ who guarded Rand—the only thing that could give her a chance.

Staying out of his reach brought its own dangers. Cauthon was shrewd; he was backing her into a corner. He might even be planning to disarm her, and then trying to get rid of her without involving the guards.

He lunged again. But not at her; his free hand seized the curtain, flinging its heavy end over her knife arm, tangling it. Then he closed, wrapping himself around her arm and tearing the blade free of her fingers. Aviendha slammed her knee into his ribs, hard enough that she felt them crack, and Cauthon grunted, letting her go. She stumbled back two steps, then grabbed the first thing her hand closed around. Hot glass burned her fingers, and she threw.

The lamp shattered, dousing Cauthon in oil, and he went up in flames.

_offering water and food to a stranger in the Three-Fold Land_

_emptiness of the gesture; there was no meaning in it now that the story was known_

_turned, studying the columns, and then extended her hand toward the glass again_

She is lost. There have been too many choices, too many points at which her path could branch. Is she in Ebou Dar, in Caemlyn, in Cairhien? Is she a Wise One, a Seanchan prisoner, a dead woman? She is all of those things and more, all at once; she feels like, if only she knew how, she could extend herself further still, and see the lives she lived before, the lives she will live after, all the way around the immeasurable expanse of the Wheel. It is a dizzying thought, a terrifying one, and it threatens to pull her completely free of herself, leaving her to drift forever.

Somewhere, hidden within that maze of possibilities, there is the truth. She is a former Maiden of the Spear, not yet an apprentice to the Wise Ones, and she is standing within a _ter’angreal_ in the hidden city of Rhuidean. All other things may be; but that one _is_. All she has to do is find her way back to that moment—to the woman she is right now—and _step through_.

But she cannot. There are too many turning points, too many mistakes and tragedies and disasters for her to trace her way back to before they began. The woman who went to Rhuidean is a naive girl in comparison; Aviendha cannot recognize her anymore.

If this is the test of a Wise One, then she has failed it.

_No._

She may not have wisdom, but she has something else. Before she ever came to Rhuidean, she was a Maiden of the Spear. And _Far Dareis Mai_ know how to fight.

She wills her foot to move.

It is like willing a stone on the far side of the Spine of the World to move. It feels that distant, that unconnected to her. But she has danced the spears; she knows what it is to command her body even when she cannot feel it for exhaustion or pain. She has found her knife in another man’s gut before she even knew her hand had struck. Her foot _will_ move, whether she can feel it or not.

From out of the countless possibilities of her future, Aviendha steps through.

  


* * *

  


Her foot thudded against the paving stones with enough force to jar her teeth. Aviendha stumbled forward, almost falling, and caught her balance several paces from the three rings.

Even as she turned to look back at them, the memories were fading, slipping away like smoke. No woman’s mind could possibly hold it all: every decision she might make, every decision that followed, all the futures that might result. Only shreds remained.

But even shreds were enough. Aviendha knew, beyond any doubt, that Rand al’Thor was He Who Comes With the Dawn. _To spit in Sightblinder’s eye on the Last Day . . . ._ That day was not far off. She and those around her stood at the heart of the Wheel’s weaving, and the challenge she faced was greater, the cost of failure higher, than any she had imagined as a simple Maiden of the Spear.

Odd, how little that thought pained her. Her spears—laid aside only a short while ago—now felt distant, half-forgotten. There were futures in which she tried to cling to that past, but none of them ended well. Understanding that made release easier: she had already lived through the grief of that loss, and come to terms with it. Perhaps this was what Amys had meant about the beginning of being called wise.

Other things remained, too. Rand al’Thor . . . she barely knew the man, and yet her heart beat faster at the thought of him. He _would_ be her husband, one way or another—hers and her sister-wives’. Whoever they would be. The memory of a love that did not yet exist warred with other thoughts in her mind, disorienting her. Aviendha breathed deeply, letting the shadows of those visions sink down to join the other fragments. Things she should say and should not say, steps she should take and should not take. Her instincts would warn her when the time was right.

For now, the time had come to depart. She would return here someday, when the Wise Ones deemed her ready. Until then, she had work to do.

Setting her feet against the dusty stone of Rhuidean, Aviendha began to run.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Did you know that (as near as I can tell) there’s only one point in the entire series where, Rand, Mat, Nynaeve, and Aviendha are all in the same place at the same time? It’s at the end of _The Dragon Reborn_ and the beginning of _The Shadow Rising_ , when they’re all in Tear . . . and trying very hard, for the most part, not to talk to one another. Your request made it sound like you would have been okay with only two or three of the requested characters (and every possible combination of three occurs at other points in the timeline), but you asked for all four, and by gum, I was determined to make it happen. :-)
> 
> Which is why you get Aviendha’s trip through the Rhuidean _ter’angreal_. (It was that or the four of them playing poker in the Stone of Tear, for no discernible reason.) I don’t think she ever says much about what she saw in there; other than the brief paragraph in _Towers of Midnight_ , the only comment I recall her making is about the inevitability of her relationship with Rand, though there may have been others somewhere in all those millions of words. We know a decent bit from Moiraine’s side, though; it seems to show, not just futures, but the consequences of their possible decisions.
> 
> All the actual scenes in here are AU, of course, based on Aviendha having done something differently. Some of the italicized bits, though, are pointers to canonical events; she saw those possibilities, too, though only fragments of various paths stayed in her memory after the fact. I apologize for the nearly unrelenting darkness of them . . . but, well, let’s face it. There’s nothing Aviendha could do that would change the fact of her living in the End Times, which are not the Happy Fun Times. And for a lot of these plots, changing anything would probably mean it turning out even _worse_.
> 
> Once author reveals happen, I’ll be happy to answer any questions about the branch-points I chose, what the fragmented bits are references to, etc. (There’s a length limit on end notes, so it won’t all fit in here.) Happy Yuletide!
> 
> EDITED TO ADD: Story notes are now posted [here](http://www.swantower.com/2013/01/01/notes-on-a-thousand-paths-in-a-single-step/). Also, to repeat what I said there: I don’t think I could have written this story without the Wheel of Time wiki and Leigh Butler’s recaps on Tor.com. Between those and the occasional bit of searching via Google Books, I was able to verify details of what happened when, that would otherwise have required me to spend four times as long hunting through the books themselves. Also, mad props to unforth for helping me think this one through; she and I had a lengthy phone conversation in which we walked through the timeline from Aviendha’s point of view, and brainstormed points of interesting divergence.


End file.
